Hoskinson Backs Starstream as Key to Cardano’s Future

Cardano ADA $0.92 24h volatility: 7.1% Market cap: $33.51 B Vol. 24h: $5.93 B ,founder Charles Hoskinson has hinted at the part that Starstream would play in the future of the Layer-1 blockchain. While he did not share specifics, the crypto leader took to X to inform his followers that “Starstream has the potential to become a core component of Cardano’s future.”

Hoskinson Joins Starstream Working Group

Recently, Charles Hoskinson joined the Starstream Working Group. This move marks a growing trend among institutions to enhance the performance of blockchains through new execution environments. Sebastien Guillemot, the co-founder of crypto ecosystem builder dcSpark and an early advocate of the Starstream initiative, confirmed his involvement with a post on X.

In his post, Guillemot also noted that the Starstream Working Group has grown significantly within two weeks. He capped the increase at approximately 50%, suggesting an increasing interest amongst institutional clients.

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Welcome to the latest member of the Starstream Working Group!!

utxo-first zkVM is getting really popular!

Working group has grown 〜50% in 2 weeks 👀 pic.twitter.com/yDF7OibNi2

— Sebastien Guillemot (@SebastienGllmt) May 7, 2025

Starstream is a new zero-knowledge (ZK) Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) based on UTXO. It is expected to provide simpler and more powerful integrations compared to earlier versions. Guillemot posted a video on X demonstrating how the design of this UTXO-based virtual machine aligns with ZK cryptography, which is widely recognized as a major advancement in privacy-preserving computation.

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Introducing Starstream: our new zkVM!

Our new design for a UTXO-based VM that is:
✅significantly more powerful
✅significantly simpler
✅compatible with ZK cryptography

Overview video ↓ pic.twitter.com/qBdpsLuO6Z

— Sebastien Guillemot (@SebastienGllmt) March 8, 2025

Cardano has an existing extended UTXO (eUTXO) model but has encountered some implementation challenges, especially with advanced cryptography. This setback is catered for with Starstream, which utilizes a WebAssembly-based VM that generates a ZK Proof for every smart contract interaction to resolve them.

This way, computations are verified efficiently without the need to reveal underlying data, which ultimately directly addresses previous limitations. With near-free transaction batching and simplified use cases, including Oracles, gaming, real-world assets, and stablecoins, the system also contributes to enhancing performance.

Cardano Midnight and Other Advancement in the Spotlight

Apart from this integration, Cardano has made some other notable advancements. The Cardano Midnight Network sidechain has gained significant traction in the last few months. As a protocol, keenly focused on data protection and privacy, this sidechain could serve as a foundational platform for blockchain-based equity issuance, per Hoskinson’s projection.

His optimism is fueled by Midnight’s privacy, programmability, and interoperability features, which Hoskinson says are critical to bringing traditional stock markets onto blockchain systems.

Cardano’s light wallet Lace, also welcomed a new iteration dubbed version 1.22. This technical milestone, which comes with native support for Bitcoin (BTC), was rolled out to users as part of its beta phase. The link with Bitcoin marks the wallet’s first major foray into a multi-chain system. Users can send, receive, and manage Bitcoin assets directly from the Lace interface.

This is a notable expansion of the Lace wallet’s utility beyond the Cardano ecosystem.

On one hand, Cardano is planning to integrate Hydra with Lightning Network to create a trustless bridge for Bitcoin Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Hoskinson once shared a three-year timeline that allows large institutions to establish themselves in the Bitcoin DeFi space, facilitated by Cardano’s unique infrastructure.

He sees the possibility that a Bitcoin ETF offering DeFi yields could increase shareholders’ demand.

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